The present invention relates to a gas or liquid distribution system for buildings and especially to a distribution system for controlling pests in the building and in the building walls.
The elimination of roaches, ants and other such pests can be a frustrating and expensive experience for the average building owner. Such pests initially enter a building from the outside through cracks in the walls of the building. They can be checked quite effectively if discovered in time. However, in the more normal situation, a building owner will usually ignore such pests until it is too late to eliminate them easily. By the time the building owner begins to take any corrective action these pests have begun breeding within the building, and it is difficult to eliminate them without great expense.
Roaches and other such pests usually breed within the walls of a building, behind and under cabinets and other similar inaccessible locations. They emerge from these breeding places from small spaces along the baseboard of the walls, and through spaces between cabinets, floors and walls.
In the past, a professional exterminating service has been the most effective method of dealing with such a pest problem. For such a service to be effective, however, periodic service calls are required so that a pesticide can be sprayed in various locations on the premises where the pests breed. Even these services are unable to get into the walls of the building where the pests breed. Therefore, most building owners usually try to eliminate such pests by using one of the many different brands of spray insecticides, which are available in retail stores. These commercially available insecticides are usually packages in aerosol cans permitting an atomized mist to be directed in a desired direction and location.
Most of the time, these aerosol insecticide sprays are applied directly on a single pest by the user, and thus are ineffective in eliminating the problem of breeding pests. Occasionally, a home owner will try to control the growth of the pest population by using these spray type insecticides by spraying the insecticide along the baseboard of the room and the cabinets and other likely pest breeding areas. It has been found that this is also an ineffective method of eliminating the pest problem because the atomized sprays will not penetrate into the spaces between the walls where most of these pests breed. Furthermore, the residual effect of these spray type insecticides is short lived, and the added burden of repeated applications will be required.
There are several presently known systems for exterminating pests by placing pipes in the walls of buildings and then injecting an insecticide through the pipes into the walls of the building or into the foundation for the control of termites. Prior U.S. patents include U.S. Pat. No. 3,602,248 for a termite control system in which pipes are laid out along the foundation and have connections for attaching pumps for pumping insecticides into the foundation. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,209,485, a built-in insecticide distribution system is also embedded into the foundation with a plurality of pipes. In the Ramsey patent, No. 3,676,949, an insecticide distribution system extends pipes through the walls passing through one stud and then the next with a distribution nozzle located between each set of studs so that insecticides can be pumped into the walls of the building. The Meyer et al. patent, No. 3,513,586, is a vermin proof building foundation in which pipes having a plurality of holes therein mounted in the building foundation. In the Griffin patent, No. 2,915,848, a built-in insecticide distribution system distributes the insecticide both in the foundation and through the walls of the building. In the Gaines, Jr. patent, No. 3,550,319, an apparatus and method for injecting purified gas to plant roots has a set of tubing in the bottom of a planter.
In the U.S. Pat. to Bridges et al., No. 3,782,026, a pest exterminating apparatus passes pipes through home walls or, alternatively, beneath the base molding where the insecticide gas can be injected into the wall. In the Lundwall patent, No. 4,028,841, a distribution system for vermin control composition mounts the insecticide storage and pressurizing system in the attic and directs the pest control fluid into the walls of the building through openings in a pipe.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,641 to Cretti, a permanently installed pest extermination system is mounted in the walls passing through the studs and, alternatively, may be mounted beneath the base molding for distributing pest extermination fluid throughout the building walls. This system has a built-in reservoir and storage system built into the wall for distribution of the liquid whenever the pump is turned on and may be operated with a timer to inject the insecticide in predetermined amounts at predetermined spaced intervals. The Carter patent No. 3,330,062 is another insect control system having pipes in the inner walls. At least one commercial system is being distributed which system as set forth in a brochure has a plurality of pipes passing through the walls with the pipes terminating in a plurality of electrical boxes mounted in the wall where a conventional pesticide is injected into the walls of the building.
The present invention has a plurality of tubes, each feeding into to a different zone of the building and each terminating at the other end in a single injection panel box. Each of the tubes is a solid tube leading to the particular zone to be injected with insecticide at which point the tube has a plurality of openings to allow the escape of the insecticide gas or liquid. The openings in the tube are spaced at varying distances apart in order to compensate for the loss of pressure as the insecticide passes the first opening in order to provide a more even distribution throughout the tube length. A single distribution box has all of the tubing passing through a single pipe into the building attic and then leading into the walls at predetermined points through the headers in the wall. The termination of the tubes in the distribution box are coded for the amount of fluid to inject and to indicate the particular zone that any particular tube is connected to.